Solved! Connecting soundbar and audio receiver with surround sound to tv

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Mar 25, 2019
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Can you connect a soundbar and an audio receiver (with surround sound speakers) to a tv with an optical audio cable splitter and have them both work simultaneously. My grandpa has both these things and after he got a new tv he had me set it up but I can get one or the other to work but not both at the same time. I tried to tell him that it might not be possible but he won’t accept that. He is stubborn and knows nothing about electronics so when I try to explain to him it might not be possible he won’t accept that. My logic is based on first of all that a soundbar serves no purpose if you have surround sound because a soundbar is just a cheap version of surround sound that gives the illusion of surround sound. Since i had to get a splitter for it and it wont do both simultaneously but only one or the other, the tv might not be able to encode/decode the decoding/encoding of both the receiver and soundbar simultaneously. And therefore coding a tv to do both simultaneously would serve no purpose making it actually impossible. I dont know a lot about how audio receivers, speaker systems, and tvs process each others information so my logic could be pretty flawed so that’s why I’m asking. I would appreciate if someone could help. Thanks.

Just to add a bit more info: i have the cable, dvd player, and roku plugged into the hdmis of the back of the audio receiver. Another thing that made no sense to me is that before I ordered the splitter I could get it all to work through the soundbar when i plugged the optical cable directly to the soundbar. The thing that made no sense was that no optical audio cable was plugged into the receiver, the receiver was off, but the roku, cable, etc were all plugged into the hdmis of the audio receiver but it still worked through the soundbar? How the hell is that possible? I must really not understand how it works

To bbe morecleae both the picture and audio worked this way somehow for all 3 of the devices
 
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Solution
There is absolutely no point in playing them at the same. The soundbar would screw up the surround sound regardless of how it's connected.
If the receiver has a front speaker B output you could use that with a speaker to line level converter for soundbar. The receiver would have to be set to stereo. Some AVRs will do that automatically when you switch the B speakers on.
There are passive LCR speakers that look like soundbars that are designed to replace the three front speakers in a surround system.
If he won't accept that it does not work the way he wants and thinks it should, the solution is to have him set it up.

The way it is setup does not seem like it will work, you would need to have the devices connected to the TV, then use the audio out on the TV to the audio splitter then to the two devices. But using both would probably sound horrible, chances are decent there will be a delay between the devices and the sound stage will be off since the soundbar will be trying to play all the channels as will the receiver so you will have center/side/rear audio from the front as well as the other speakers.

One or the other is much better.
 
Mar 25, 2019
3
0
10
If he won't accept that it does not work the way he wants and thinks it should, the solution is to have him set it up.

The way it is setup does not seem like it will work, you would need to have the devices connected to the TV, then use the audio out on the TV to the audio splitter then to the two devices. But using both would probably sound horrible, chances are decent there will be a delay between the devices and the sound stage will be off since the soundbar will be trying to play all the channels as will the receiver so you will have center/side/rear audio from the front as well as the other speakers.

One or the other is much better.

Yeah thats what i thought since it is an active soundboard and what you are saying makes sense about putting them in the back of the tv. So my next question is this. If he bought a passive soundbar would that still mess with the sound and to use the passive soundbar would i need to connect it to the back of the receiver with the splitter than?
 
There is absolutely no point in playing them at the same. The soundbar would screw up the surround sound regardless of how it's connected.
If the receiver has a front speaker B output you could use that with a speaker to line level converter for soundbar. The receiver would have to be set to stereo. Some AVRs will do that automatically when you switch the B speakers on.
There are passive LCR speakers that look like soundbars that are designed to replace the three front speakers in a surround system.
 
Solution
Mar 25, 2019
3
0
10
There is absolutely no point in playing them at the same. The soundbar would screw up the surround sound regardless of how it's connected.
If the receiver has a front speaker B output you could use that with a speaker to line level converter for soundbar. The receiver would have to be set to stereo. Some AVRs will do that automatically when you switch the B speakers on.
There are passive LCR speakers that look like soundbars that are designed to replace the three front speakers in a surround system.
There is absolutely no point in playing them at the same. The soundbar would screw up the surround sound regardless of how it's connected.
If the receiver has a front speaker B output you could use that with a speaker to line level converter for soundbar. The receiver would have to be set to stereo. Some AVRs will do that automatically when you switch the B speakers on.
There are passive LCR speakers that look like soundbars that are designed to replace the three front speakers in a surround system.

Ok thats what I thought from the beginning before I eventried to figure it out. It would sound like shit because of delays between the 2 systems or somethinf of that nature. But here’s the thing, on his old tv it was set up the same way hang-the-9 said above except with rca cables. But the guy who set it up that way on his old tv has his own business called hopp sounds so he must have known this also. My hunch is that he just set it up that way bc he couldnt get him to understand why it won’t work or why it serves no purpose. And in reality it actually did sound like shit but my grandpa is delusional and the fact both of them were working at the same time satisfied his delusion despite reality saying it sounded like shit. Unless the same wouldnt apply to rca cables but im assuming it does. But just to put one more twist so u can understand the insanity im dealing with:
he told me last night also that the way it was set up before he never had to turn the receiver on. So if thats actuallg true then only the soundbar was working the whole time.
 
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